Formerly known as Kristiania, the city of Oslo was destroyed by fire and rebuilt several times over its nearly 1000 years, since it was founded. Following the case of several cities in Northern Europe, its economy and development changed since the arrival of the shipyards, which were built during and after the Great Northern War at the beginning of the 18th Century, in which several empires fought over the regions of the Baltic Sea region. Already in the last decades of the 20th Century and in the early 2000s, Oslo entered, along witht other cities of Scandinavia, in a major urban renewal, the most relevant being the Barcode Project, which resulted in a new fresh skyline who's crowned by the Operahuset, the Norwegian Opera House that blends into the ground and uses its sloping roofs as public spaces.

Along with the Barcode Project, the Oslo Opera is one of the great icons of Norwegian modernity. Its design unites the building with the ground, giving as a result a sort-of-public terrace, which is often very crowded. The outer skin was made in white granite and Carrara marble, which contrasts with its light blue courtain wall. It is equally interesting in its interior, given its great luminosity, the multi-level circles of light wood and the design of metal covers in the corridors.

The skyline that serves as the postcard Oslo nowadays correspond almost entirety to the Barcode Project, a new neighborhood built in the early 2000s, in what was a rebirth of an old industrial zone of the city. Being the most modern district, it is also the headquarters of several multinationals. It's placed in front of the tracks of the Oslo Central Station ("Oslo Sentralstasjon"), and it's connected on the other side with the area of the Operahuset.